Puños de hierro

I am a peplum fan, especially in its original form. Did American International executives really think that they were improving Italian pepla by shortening and dubbing them, changing the Greco-Roman characters' names for those of Philistine and Jewish men from the Bible, and replacing the original scores with Lex Baxter's pastiches? The American version of this highly enjoyable wide-screen production is a fine example of the cheapening effect their strategy had. Starting with the substitution of the name Maciste, perhaps the father of all strong men in films since 1914 (when "Cabiria" was released), they had no idea of anything, just as well as Baxter with his atrocious pop cue for a belly dance in a tavern. Nevertheless, the good news is that Maciste is in good shape and in the very good and capable hands of American star Gordon Scott. He goes this time after a vampire tyrant called Kobrak, who is helped by a slave witch called Astra. Maciste lives many adventures with the assistance of Kurtik, a rebel fighter, and his not-very efficient army of blue men. But Maciste is Maciste and you know that he will win. Scott is helped by a fine cast that includes Jacques Sernas, Gianna Maria Canale and Leonora Ruffo. Hope one day someone will release the original version in Italian.

Due to the potential horror elements inherent in the title, I had been intrigued since childhood by a one-page still from this film in a large book about "Epics" owned by my father's showing Gordon Scott grappling with an unseen assailant; only in hindsight do I realize he was battling 'himself' (22 years before SUPERMAN III!) by way of some amusingly modern wrestling tactics! Therefore, I was glad to finally get to watch this via a faded, English-dubbed print available on a "You Tube" channel dedicated to peplums...since, strangely enough, the film has never been shown on Italian TV or available on VHS in my neck of the woods! After donning Tarzan's loincloth 6 times, it was a natural step, I suppose, for American muscleman Scott to go to Italy and incarnate their household mythological hero Maciste (although Mark Forrest had already done so before him) – albeit ludicrously redubbed with the Biblical moniker of Goliath for U.S. export! – a role he would officially repeat twice more later on in the decade.

Speaking of the film's title, the American one also misleadingly hyped up the number of horrific villains in it by going for the plural word "vampires" rather than the more accurate singular one of the original; in fact, the vampire attacks here are nothing more than the collection of blood from sword or claw wounds suffered by the victims of the vampire's acolytes, which is then apparently used to revive the master villain Kobrak's desiccated wax-like warriors (described as "robots with blood"!) stored in his red-lit (netherworld?) cave; disappointingly, Kobrak's true skeletal visage is only really ever seen towards the film's closing moments! Maciste starts out as a village farmer but he is soon pelting soldiers with uprooted trees and stone columns or piles of chains! The biggest laugh-out loud moments are when Maciste slaps an assailant and literally sends him flying to the roof and when he is shown standing around whirling his arms into people like one of those gladiatorial training contraptions!

Thankfully, however, the film delivers aplenty in the atmosphere department and, all in all, this is yet another satisfying work from prolific and versatile Italian director Gentilomo – assisted here by future Spaghetti Western expert Corbucci. Indeed, GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES emerges as one of the most bizarre and entertaining peplums ever, punctuated as it is by lively action sequences (a protracted market place scuffle early on is a particular highlight) but also an atypically grim countenance (not only are there no dwarfish comic relief figures but the characters of Maciste's mother and the little brother of Maciste's fiancée end up dead! But, wait, there is more: the prerequisite Arabian-style dance routine is anachronistically accompanied by modern-day jazzy sounds and goofy crab-like creatures lurk in the villain's pit! Besides, it turns out to be surprisingly blood-thirsty for what is traditionally kiddie fare with an arrow shot at point-blank range right into a villager's eye during the initial attack, another slides off a pole and ends up impaled on spikes, Kobrak's ominous threat of torturing Maciste by the use of sound-waves is nothing more ingenious than slipping him inside a giant bell and having his men clang the hell out of it(!) and, hilariously enough, old women are thrown to the sharks off of a slave ship (so what was the point of abducting them in the first place?). Actually, with all of this going on, the film still manages to lose some momentum in the build-up to the climactic attack on Kobrak's cave!

Apart from Scott, the cast includes genre stalwarts like Gianna Maria Canale (as Astra, ostensibly The King's favorite slave but truly Kobrak's servant), Leonora Ruffo (as Maciste's girl) and Jacques Sernas (rather than playing the obligatory romantic second lead, he plays an ambiguous alchemist leading a rebel army of Blue Men)! While I could tell the female lead here was an attractive blonde. I did not associate her with the stunning brunette from THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (1952); looking over her filmography, I realize that I have already seen her in 5 other movies and have another one (her last, Fernando Di Leo's BURN, BOY, BURN released in 1969) in my unwatched pile!

I happen to like these cheap made in Italy spectacles. When I was I kid growing up in the sixties they were constantly on TV. So the appeal of these films to me is primarily nostalgia. However, I must admit most these films, in fact just about all these films are pretty bad. These films were the "kung fu" cheapies of there day. No I would never say that this film is good, but as far these films go, this one is not bad.At least its got a rather bizarre plot with its evil vampire bent on enslaving man kind. The bluemen are also kind of strange. The film is well paced and there is lots of action. Many of these spear and sandal epics are talky and static. Also from watching this film one can at least see that Gorden Scott din't get to fat to play Tarzan!

I don't know what possessed me to pick up this movie from the video store, but it turned out to be an interesting, and enjoyable, flick. I think I would have enjoyed it much more, if the video transfer hadn't been of such poor quality. This otherwise routine sword-and-sandal film is livened up the truly bizarre villain and some excellent music. One tune in particular, which plays while a slave girl dances, wouldn't sound out of place on a Ventures album, or a compilation of surf tunes.

The story concerns Goliath's attempt to rescue the women of his village who were kidnapped as part of a diabolical scheme by the wizard Kobrak. The villain wants to use their blood to power his army of robots. (In this movie, robots run on human blood.) In the final scene, Kobrak changes into Goliath's shape. Goliath must then do battle with himself.

This is probably the first "Peplum" movie I ever saw, so I'm pretty biased about it, but even considering that, it's very entertaining. As one reviewer on another site points out, it's a revenge story (an unusual thing for this category of film), and one that's surprisingly violent at the beginning. And also that the requisite little kid sidekick isn't squeezed edgewise into scenes, but used in a pretty clever way. Along with that, it has plenty of good "formula" things - the harem girls, a pretty good supernatural monster, a "villainess" (albeit the kind who changes sides - I prefer the "unrepentant" kind), and (as many posters have pointed out) the "Blue Man Group." Gordon Scott always fit so easily into these movies (I might be the only one on earth who thinks that "Danger : Deathray" is okay, thanks largely to him), as did the Italian actors in this one.